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FREE WILL DEFENCE - Coggle Diagram
FREE WILL DEFENCE
MACKIE
- produces his own version of the FWD in order to criticise it
- First order goods = happiness and pleasure
- First order evils = unhappiness, pain & misery
- If we come across somebody in a state of first-order evil, we can either reduce their misery by being sympathetic, understanding or kind OR we can worsen their misery through spite, meanness, selfishness
- In the same way if we come across somebody in a state of first-order good, we can either increase their pleasure or remove it
- Second order goods = sympathy, understanding, kindness, compassion, love [maximise first order goods and minimise first order evils]
- Second order evil = spite, meanness, jealousy, envy, greed, selfishness [exists to maximise first order evil & minimise first order goods]
- Without the evils & pain of suffering we would never have the even greater joys and benefits of being able to show courage, sympathy, love
- The price of this is that many will reject these goods and will become hateful towards each other
- Freedom = third-order good as it allows us to choose between putting in place fist/second order good/evil, and eventually teaches us to love the
- God is therefore justifies in allowing evil in the universe because it permits the freedom to choose or reject the good- teaches us to be morally responsible
- GOD = fourth order good
STRENGTHS
- satisfactorily explains moral evil- the criminal justice system works on the assumption we have free will
- Plantingas account of FWD shows both his MSR 1 & MSR 2 are logically possible logically possible, so planting refutes Mackie
- Plantinga is right to insist against Mackie that it would have been logically impossible for God to have created a world which people had free will but never made morally bad choices- even an omnipotent being could not do the logically possible
- its argued that the FWD cannot explain natural evilaince natural evil is not caused by human free will but there is no doubt that natural evils do bring about second order moral goods such as love, sympathy, compassion
- FWD establishes 1 crucial principle- that aw world with free creature is miore valuable than a world without them- freedom makes any love, joy, goodness worth having
WEAKNESSESS
- Even though plantigas MSR 1 & MSR 2 show the FWD is logically coherent-it doesnt show that its true
- his explanation that natural evil was brought about by Adam & eve elevates a mythological story to the status of a philosophical argument which its not
- The FWD relies on a liberation account of free will which holds that although humans are determined by their biology and chemistry, theyrenethertheless free in some way to make choices & decisions
-- This cannot be proved, only assumed
- It has no convincing response to the evidential problem of evil
- it is very difficult to reconcile Gods omniscience with the sheer extent of evil
- freedom isnt worth the price-tagAt this point of creation, God must have known the full extent of human evil, o why did he bother to create such a universe?
CRITICISMS
- MACKIE rejects the FWD
- it is logically possible for a person to make free, good choices all the time
- God could have created humans so that they would only male free, good choices
- God evidently didn't do so
- Therefore, either god lacks the power to do so (impotent)
- He isnt loving enough to do so (malevolent)
- Either way the FWD fails, therefore God doesnt exist
- PLANTINGA responds to mackies criticism, defending the FWD
- " it would be impossible to casually determine human actins and at the same time allow them to be morally free"
- If human beings were forced to do nothing but good, that would represent a denial of human free will
- God isn't responsible if humans choose to do evil
- God is operating under self-imposed constraints that means God won't compel human beings to do good (this would be a denial of FW)
PLANTINGA
- Morally sufficient reasons why God allows evil to exist:
- 1) Free will is the greater good "Free will is something of tremendous value"- God couldn't eliminate the evil & suffering because he would in the process eliminate the greater good of Free will
- 2) Natural evil was caused by humans- "God allowed natural evil to enter the world as part of Adam and eves punishment for their is in the Garden of evil" (brought about disharmony)